the final book in the Maya Davis series. (Again, if you plan on reading this series and have not read books 1 & 2 stop here, buy the books, and start reading... spoilers are included.)

Maya is finally engaged to the love of her life, Jack and her best friend Jen marries Travis. They are swept off into their honeymoon while Maya is left dealing with yet another big change... she is living in her new apartment alone. We also find out that Kate (Maya's sister in law) goes into labor at only 7 months pregnant. This news gave me chills and made this the first book in quite some time to bring tears to my eyes. No worries though, all turns out well. But back to Maya and Jack (and more change)... Maya finally gets a promotion at Cool Beans and just as she is excited to tell Jack her news, he is equally excited to tell her about a job opportunity in Seattle. How are they going to handle this? Maya likes where she lives and finally got the promotion she wanted... and we all know how Maya feels about change (she hates it so much she that she hated changing a sandwich type!)! I would dread making this decision. But it seems that we will never know what the decision was... The book was great. The series was great. I love Erynn's writing, but the ending of this book killed me! It was left wide open (at least to me). Either way, I highly recommend this series and all of her other books!

Our next day in Atlanta we had plans to go downtown and explore. Our original plan involved going to the aquarium. We weren't aware that they had timed entry though and we had a baseball game to get to. We didn't want to chance it so we decided to explore downtown more and do the aquarium another day. (The aquarium never ended up happening, but we do have plans to go back and that will be on the list of things to do.) So explore we did... and we started with the Coke factory. And in all honesty... I wouldn't do it again. Yea it was cool to do once, but I certainly wouldn't pay to get in again. But we do have a few pics...

We posed with the polar bear... Payton loved him

but she really wanted to get into all those big coke bottles!

And then ladies and gentlemen (and by gentlemen I mean my dad and husband because I am not sure any other males are reading this)... we saw the vault... Not just any vault. But the vault that holds the secret to coke. Insert ooohs and aahhs here please...

And we saw a baseball signed by Chipper Jones. Of course we had to take a picture of that.

And anyone who has ever been to Disney World knows why I took this picture. And if you don't... next time you are there, go taste Beverly and let me know how you feel. I get a kick out of watching people taste that one.

And to wrap up our tour we got our own bottle of coke.

Considering I wasn't that interested in the making of it, the history of it, or anything else really, it wasn't too worth it to us. Like I said, cool to do once, but not again, not for us. I would rather just head to Disney and do the taste tests there because that was the only fun part to us.

Anyways... next we went to the CNN Center for lunch. It was pretty nice in there but we didn't do the tour.

After lunch, we headed through downtown and back to our car. We were on our way to our next Braves game...

Day two, and our first full day, in Atlanta brought us to Turner Field. This was game 1 that we were attending. We got there early enough to take some pictures before it got crowded.

I think it is safe to say that Tim was in his glory being able to take Payton to Turner Field and to the Braves game.

It just happened to be all star weekend (little did I know what that even meant) and we got to meet some former players.

Afterwards, we explored more...

...and Payton wanted to show that she came to chop! And yes, we did buy that foam tomahawk.

Next, Payton had her very first stadium hotdog. Not a Sahlen's but she still enjoyed it. She ate it on the bun and everything!

We finally made it to our seats to watch a little batting practice. The weather wasn't great and it rained a bit before this so they weren't having batting practice.

Payton spent the majority of the game running up and down the aisle we were in. And it really wore her out...

Which meant we finally both got to sit down and watch the game together. To this point, we were alternating watching her so she could walk up and down the aisle. Luckily it wasn't crowded and she had free reign to walk around, and we could still watch the game while walking around.

And once Payton woke up she was ready to take the field... she wanted a chance to bat!

We ended up having a good time, but it was very difficult to take an extremely active practically one year old to a baseball game. She wanted to walk around everywhere! Luckily the security guard in our section was really nice and understanding and let us pretty much go where ever we wanted and do whatever we wanted. It pays to have that cutie with you I guess, because the man was really nice to us... but not so much to some other fans. We went to another game the next day... see how that went in a couple days...

Meaning it is July 22... and I am finally posting about a trip we took June 9... so I am just a little behind. We have been busy! On Saturday, June 9, we loaded up the car and headed to Atlanta for Tim's birthday weekend. We got in at about 4ish (I think) and checked into the Westin for our long weekend. We decided to just relax today and went to the pool. Which was a very small pool. But lucky for Payton, we were the only ones in it. For the amount this hotel charges you would think they'd have a bigger, nicer pool.. but I digress. We went swimming for a little while before heading to the HUGE mall (huge like had to circle forever to try to even find a parking spot... hello people of Atlanta... there are lots of things to do in your city GO DO THEM!) and dinner. I obviously don't have pictures of the hotel, the mall, or dinner (because I am a slacker sometimes) but what I do have are some fantastic pictures of our swimming star! So, without further ado, Payton in the pool...

Continuing with our theme of "OMG Tim has days off with us what ever shall we do..." on this particular day (June 2) we took Payton to a carnival. We had seen it set up in the parking lot of our mall and wanted to take Payton but I was really skeptical because she is so small, I wasn't sure she would be allowed on anything, even with us. So, my parents and I went up and asked if there was anything she could even ride (assuming one of us rode with her). The first person told us there was nothing (except the carousel) and we weren't paying $5 entry just to do nothing, so with that, we were about to leave. But Papa to the rescue... he went and talked to the manager to see if we could just go in and check out the signs. We went in and found that there were a few rides she would be allowed to go on as long as we rode with her. Well duh... we aren't about to let our (at the time) not even one year old "sit" in a ride on her own. Payton doesn't sit. So in we went...

The first ride we went on was this doggy ride. I rode this one with Payton. I guess you could compare this to the dumbo ride? We went up and down. She got a kick out of it.

Next, Payton and daddy rode the pink helicopter.

And she was a natural in the pilot's seat!

And then finally, after almost a year of attempts, Payton rode the carousel with Nonny. See my nonny always had the tradition to take the grandkids on their first carousel ride. I decided to keep that going and have my mom take Payton on her first ride. Now, we have a carousel in our mall, and I can't tell you how many times we have been in that mall but not all of us, and I refused to let her take Payton on if Tim wasn't there to see. So finally, they went on a carousel.

And O.M.G. I do not recall a carousel being as fast as this thing was (and this one was slower than the one we encountered in Buffalo on the 4th of July). But regardless, they went.

Payton wasn't so sure about it. Well sure, I wouldn't be so sure either at the young age of 1 riding a pony that is acting like it is about to win the Kentucky Derby!

And last, a ride with Papa.. the train.

Again, she is a pro driver. She loved this one! Or she just loved the time with Papa. Either way, she had a smile the entire time.

And before we left, Tim had to win Payton a stuffed animal. And you can see how very proud she is of that little bear.

Don't mind that every night it is in her crib and every morning it is on the floor with her pacis. Maybe she just throws him out in the hopes he will retrieve the thrown pacis for her... Either way, she loves him!